New Sony OLED technology (and CMOS production increase).

Within the camera industry Sony is leading the OLED front and the latest news is that they developed a “low-reflection conductive film that can improve the image quality of a display equipped with a touch panel such as a smartphone screen” (Source: Nikkei).

Sony is the worldwide leader of CMOS/CCD sensor production but the market is still growing. Sony now announced that “they will invest in its Nagasaki Technology Center to increase the production capacity for stacked CMOS sensors, aimed mainly to smartphones.” (Source: Image Sensor World).

Nikon D3200 has or has not the same Sony 24 MP sensor?

Chipworks dismantled the Nikon D3200 and analyzed the sensor of the camera. While there is a clear “Nikon” mark on it I want to ask if someone actually read the full report (you have to pay to download it). A mark alone is not enough to be sure the sensor is different from the A77/A65/NEX-7 sensor.

I want to repeat once again that I am 99% sure the Nikon D800 sensor is the same because of the simple reason that I posted about that 36 Megapixel sensor almost one year before the Nikon D800 came out. And I also said by that time that it would be used by a Nikon camera. I am not so sure about the D3200 sensor. It may be the same sensor with just a Nikon mark on it, it may be a Nikon slightly modified sensor, it may a completely non Sony sensor. I hope smart tech guys can answer this.

Anyway, this is just a minor debate and people on SAR shouldn’t get too “hot” while discussing that :)

Another new camera with Sony sensor (The Pentax K30)

The Sony 16 megapixel CMOS sensor is probably the most “sold” sensor of the DSLR and Mirrorless market. Ricoh, Nikon, Sony and now even the new Pentax K30 (Click here) uses it! Will be nice to see the comparison between that camera and our nee Sony A57. Anyway, I also wanted to focus on your attention on the complete new design of the new Pentax DSLR. You really don’t see often something like this. I don’t know if that is something Sony should do too! You like it?

P.S.: Out friend Jason from SonyAlphaLab (Click here) finalized the A57 review!

Sony NEX-7 Redneck edition by LL.

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Luminous Landscape (Click here) posted a very well written article about the NEX-7 video button issue. As you know it’s very easy to press the video button which is placed on the grip. And many here and on other websites asked Sony to release a firmware upgrade which could allow to disable or lock this button. After nine months there is still no answer from Sony and I 100% agree with Mark Dubovoy when he writes that this is “Unacceptable because when I spend my hard earned dollars on a product and the product has an obvious flaw that can probably be easily fixed by a simple firmware update, I feel that the company owes it to their customers to provide a fix as soon as possible.

Marc now reports that he has found a “redneck” solution that makes uses of a rubber grommet mounted around the video button.

Michale Reichmann goes further in his Sony critic by pointing two more big issues we NEX-7 owners have to deal with:
There is one other aspect to this issue that was also apparent since day one, and has been known to cause cardiac arrest among NEX-7 owners. This problem is that the NEX-7 inexplicably maintains two separate directory structures for its video and stills files. So, when you first discover that you have shot 20 minutes of the inside of your camera bag, and you delete the offending video to clear room on the card, the  camera displays – DELETING IMAGES. Note the plural!? Even if you are just deleting one video file, or one still image, it says IMAGES. Heart attack number one.
Heart attack number two is that after you delete the offending video file and then press PLAY the screen displays NO IMAGES, even if you have shot hundreds of raws or JPGs on the same card. The reason for this is that there are separate directories for the two types of files. The simple solution is to shoot a quick still, and now the stills directory of files becomes available. There is also a convoluted way through the menus, but life is too short to delve into Sony menu land unless one really has to.

I know Sony is working on the release of the NEX-7 firmware update. Let’s hope Sony has already implemented the fix for the here mentioned issues! They really can’t afford to lack of support for the probably most sold Sony camera ever. The camera is on top of all sales ranking at Amazon US (Click here), Amazon UK (Click here), Amazon DE (Click here) and Amazon FR (Click here). Is Sony going to listen to all of these great amount of customers?

 

 

Sony press release aftermath…(Updated with Adorama preorders)

It’s pretty obvious that most SonyAlphaRumors readers are not particularly excited about the new Sony stuff. The A37, the NEX-F3 and the two newly announced slow zooms are not relevant news for us already owning NEX and Alpha cameras. I understand the call for new NEX and Alpha lenses and new FF stuff. But you should not get too frustrated. All that kind of stuff is coming within the next 3-4 months. So you really don’t have to wait a long time anymore!

Coming back to today’s announcement I have to say that overall the A37 and NEX-F3 are nice cameras. I am a bit less happy about the lenses :)

A bit more links: A37 impression video at ThePhoBlographer (Click here). Press text at Digitalcameraworld, ePhotozine.

Preorders:
A37 is available for preorder at Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here)
NEX-F3 is available for preorder at Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here)
Sony 18-200mm NEX lens preorder at BHphoto (Click here).
Sony 18-135mm A mount lens preorder at BHphoto (Click here).

 

 

Sony A37 and NEX-F3 officially announced!

Preorders:
A37 is available for preorder at Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here)
NEX-F3 is available for preorder at Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here)
Sony 18-200mm NEX lens preorder at BHphoto (Click here).
Sony 18-135mm A mount lens preorder at BHphoto (Click here).

Previews:
A37: Dpreview, Imaging Resource, Digitalcamerareview, ThePhoBlographer, Techradar, Pocket Lint.
NEX-F3: Dpreview, Techradar, Focus Numerique (French), Imaging Resource, ThePhoBlographer, Pocket Lint.
A37 and NEX-F3 hands-on at Engadget.

Interesting notes:
If you were wondering what’s the difference between the enw 18-200mm lens and the old 18-200mm lens read Asai’s (Sony manager) statement at Amateur Photographer: “Costing £670, the new 18-200mm will be £30 cheaper than the existing version. However, it does not offer the same level of image stabilisation and its minimum close focusing distance is 30cm, compared to 50cm on the current model, said Asai.

Image samples:
A37: Imaging Resource,
NEX-F3: Dpreview, Imaging Resource, Flickr Australia.

Press release:
A37: Dpreview, Focus Numerique (French), Photoscala (German), DC.watch (japanese).
NEX-F3: Dpreview, Focus Numerique (French), Photoscala (German), DC.watch (japanese).

Video:

POLL:
So you had now plenty of time to reader previews and watch image samples. Here is the question:

If you could pay $3000+ for a fast lens which one would you buy?

View Results

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P.S.: Sorry for the 30minutes delay after the announcement but my computer completely freezed and died. I am so frustrated, have to buy a new one I guess. This one is so old now :(

 

Sony annnouncement soon….

Good Morning!

Its 5am here in Europe and I am here on SAR ready to start the coverage fo the NEX-F3 and A37 release. I am also curious to see if Sony will give us some hint about the future products like lens roadmaps, A99 prototype and more….

 

Stay tuned! I am going to make a Coffea now ;)